Why Kenan Thompson is replacing Simon Cowell on AGT — and why fans are already asking NBC to make it permanent
Second time's the charm.
Simon Cowell's chair was empty last Tuesday.
If you watched the August 25 live quarterfinals of America's Got Talent, you saw Terry Crews address it directly: Cowell is having a back operation. Not an emergency, but not something that can wait either. He'll be out a few weeks. Get well soon, Simon, etc.
On Friday, the show's Instagram announced who's warming the seat starting September 1, and it's the single most agreeable human being in American television: Kenan Thompson.
Why Kenan, specifically
Because he's done it before, and everyone loved it.
Back in 2020, Cowell broke his back in an electric bike accident in his Malibu courtyard — a six-hour surgery, a metal rod, and lasting nerve damage he's been managing ever since. Kenan filled in for two quarterfinals episodes that season alongside Howie Mandel, Sofía Vergara, and then-judge Heidi Klum. He was warm, he was funny, he was generous with acts that needed it and honest with acts that didn't. It worked.
This time he'll sit with Mandel, Vergara, and Mel B for the third Live Quarterfinals of season 21 — eleven acts, one Golden Buzzer, straight to the finals.
Cowell's own advice from 2020, posted to X after the crash: "read the manual before you ride it for the first time." Words to live by.
About the "make it permanent" thing
The AGT Instagram post only lists Kenan for the one night. But the comments under it, per TV Shows Ace, went somewhere the show did not intend. A meaningful chunk of them weren't asking Kenan to fill in for Simon. They were asking him to replace Mel B.
I'm not here to litigate Mel B. I'm here to note that when a substitute judge gets announced and fans immediately start redrawing the whole panel, that's a review.
The other name that popped up, because it always does: Kelly Clarkson. Someone in every comments section on every show wants Kelly Clarkson to guest judge. Someday one of them will be right.
Kenan, on being Kenan
Thompson has been on Saturday Night Live for 23 seasons — the longest-running cast member in the show's history — and season 52 premieres September 26, which means he's doing AGT in the middle of his own show's pre-season. He's been a professional funny person since he was a literal child on All That, and he's very clear-eyed about what that means to people.
He told USA Today earlier this summer, in a quote NBC's own site is happily recycling, that "people tend to smile when my face pops up" because it reminds them of a moment when they really laughed. That's the whole job description for an AGT judge, honestly. The critical part is Simon's lane. The rest of the panel is there to feel things.
AGT has spent 21 seasons learning that the audience wants exactly one mean judge. Kenan will never be that judge. That is his entire appeal.
What we don't know
Whether Kenan stays for more than one episode, or whether the show rotates guests while Cowell recovers. Whether Cowell is back for the semifinals on September 15. Whether the two-night finale on September 22 and 23 has its creator in the chair.
Cowell's team has called the procedure routine and said he's expected back within weeks. Nobody's suggesting a permanent change to the panel. Nobody official, anyway. The comments section has its own agenda.
